To understand Russia, you have to dive deep into its history — boyars and czars, Pushkin and Pasternak, Stalin and Stalingrad. To understand the perils of underestimating Russia, you don't have to go back that far. Just rewind to 2001, when George W. Bush naively sized up Vladimir Putin as a leader he could work with, a conclusion Bush reached when he looked into the Russian leader's eyes and "found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.